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Comment by pzo | Hacker News Reader

Didn't warfare changed big enough that big navy might be more obsolete? Ukraine-Russia conflict showed that you can make hordes of cheap naval drones that can easily harass your very expensive ships or put them out of combat. By now probably you can still make more advanced but cheaper underwater drones, smart torpedos etc.

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The jeune ecole thought that torpedoes and small torpedo boats would doom battleships; they were wrong. People thought SAMs would end bombers, and anti-tank missiles would end tanks. There’s always a new weapon, but it doesn’t mean the old ones are obsolete.

Not always, but sometimes it does. Cavalry charges aren't a thing anymore, for instance.

Or revolvers, bolt action rifles, muskets, bow and arrows, spears, swords, shields, catapults, castles/ land forts.

No but mechanised assaults are. Mounting up on a fast transport and charging the enemy lines is still a viable tactic, what changed is the horse got too vulnerable and the robots aren't cheap or fast enough yet.

Humm-Vees, Bradley's and other infantry mobility vehicles with mounted guns for fire support have very much stepped into the tactical role.

The idea of a cavalry charge is nonsense. Rarely done, and mostly a relic of cinema. The Polish cavalry actually performed quite well during WW2 despite being tarnished as outdated.

The roles of a "cavalry" unit are reconnaissance/scouting, raiding, pursuit. Whether they're on horseback or mounted in M2/M3s doesn't matter. Today the cavalry role still persists in most large militaries because the fog of war requires it.

Cavalry charges absolutely were used to break lines of infantry. It just became obsolete earlier than you think.

Cavalry charges were obsolete once the pike was implemented. Using cavalry after that point in time was limited to chasing down retreating troops and the previously mentioned roles.

Not so. See the battle of Kircholm from 1605 as a particularly successful example. Anyway, the discussion is about whether new technology (naval drones) could make old weapons (warships) and tactics obsolete. I thought you were saying that cavalry charges never happened and so never became obsolete. I'm glad that's not the case. But you yourself are saying that technology rendered cavalry charges obsolete. There are countless other examples; no one could argue in good faith that the once-dominant bronze chariot still has any role on a battlefield.

I just realized you're not the guy who said "it doesn’t mean the old ones are obsolete", so probably moot

It's 2025, now. I would say that drones do better than horses, nowadays.

Vulnerable, not obsolete. Unless the war is in North America, you need cargo ships to get the heavy equipment and fuel there. And then you need a navy to protect the cargo ships from those cheap naval drones and other threats.

> Ukraine-Russia conflict showed...

Hordes of cheap naval drones is what Ukraine had the ability to produce. And long before the current conflict started, Russia's navy was well-known for having very serious maintenance, performance, and survivability issues. They would have proven similarly vulnerable to a very wide variety of weapons.

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